MKB Bank, initially Magyar Külkereskedelmi Bank (lit. 'Hungarian Foreign Trade Bank'), was a Hungarian state-owned bank founded in 1950. It was privatized in the mid-1990s, then renationalized in the 2010s. It eventually merged in the early 2020s with Budapest Bank and Takarékbank to form Magyar Bank Holding, branded MBH Bank, thus creating the second-largest commercial bank in Hungary behind OTP Bank. The complex three-way merger was announced in 2020 and completed in 2023.[1]
History
MKB was created in 1950 within the communist-era single-tier banking system, in which it was one of the country's four main financial institutions alongside the Hungarian National Bank, the Hungarian Investment Bank (renamed the State Bank for Development in 1972 and liquidated in 1987), and the Hungarian National Savings Bank Company.[2]